Do the Cons really need a bilingual leader in order to win a phony majority, Wilf?

Maybe not; but with 23% of the votes in the leadership contest being cast in Quebec (not to mention francophone New Brunswickers like Bernard Lord, and franco-Ontarians), a unilingual candidate will be at a disadvantage.

I suspect he will look to provincial politics after the provincial Conservatives are routed once again in next year's election, and the Tories quickly show Jamie Baille the door and start looking for a new leader.

Just to toss it out there: Kevin Falcon will be 50 and probably recently retired. He's mused about not running again. If the BC Liberals fall apart in 2013, I could see him going to federal Conservatives rather than splash around in the swampy muck of the BC Conservative Party.

In November 2014, after eight years as Prime Minister and twelve years as party leader, lagging in the polls behind Tom Mulcair, Stephen Harper (then 55) announces his resignation as Conservative Party leader. The party decides to chose a new leader in April 2005, six months before the election due Oct. 19, 2015.

This summer, Harper will have been a member of parliament for eleven consecutive years and 15 altogether (he served a previous term from 1993-97, before leaving, temporarily as it turns out).

* This summer, Harper will have been leader of his party (Canadian Alliance/Conservative) for eleven years.

* This summer, Harper will have been prime minister for seven-and-a-half years, which may not sound like a long time, but it puts him in ninth place (out of 22 PMs) overall in terms of tenure. He'd have to spend another year and a half in office to pass Louis St. Laurent, who's eighth on the list.

Ron Paul, Preston Manning, and Ezra Levant walk into a bar. Welcome to the Manning Networking Conference, a political gathering like no other.

Notably absent from the conference roster is Dr. Tom Flanagan, the intellectual "godfather" behind Harper's rise to power. Flanagan was dropped from the program last week after publicly airing his "grave doubts" about jailing consumers of child porn -- then chuckling, unprompted, about his years on the mailing list of NAMBLA. Thirty seconds of cellphone video, and Flanagan's career was over. If the supposed master strategist is capable of such a spectacular misstep, then so is anyone.

An ominous poll from Nanos this week put Conservative support nationally at 31.5 per cent, lower than it has been since August 2009. The Liberals are in second place, even before the official coronation of Justin Trudeau, while the NDP is hoping to build off a likely provincial victory in the upcoming B.C. election.

Meanwhile, Manning Conference sponsors Enbridge and TransCanada face grassroots opposition and regulatory uncertainty in building pipelines west, south and east from the oil sands. Landlocked Canadian bitumen, and where to send it, is the subject of a panel debate this weekend between Dr. Wenran Jiang of the Asia-Pacific Institute, U.S. Chamber of Commerce delegate Matt Koch, and Blaine Higgs, Finance Minister of New Brunswick and a longtime employee of Irving Oil -- owners of the massive Saint John refinery.

Here to discuss the role of women in conservative politics are MPs Michelle Rempel, Candice Bergen (formerly Hoeppner, best-known for the bill she introduced to eliminate the long-gun registry), and Joan Crockatt (former managing editor at the Calgary Herald and winner of the November byelection in Calgary Centre). This is an important conversation for a party that still faces a gender gap at the polls.

"Is the federal Conservative Party at a high water mark? How can we continue to attract new supporters?" So asks another panel featuring ethnic outreach guru Jason Kenney, along with cabinet colleague Maxime Bernier -- one of only five Conservative MPs to survive the "Orange Wave" in Quebec.

Each topic provides a clue as to the movement's current preoccupations. The urban-rural divide, the legacy of Attawapiskat, Canada's reputation abroad -- expect more frank discussion of the Conservative government's missteps and weaknesses than you will ever hear in Question Period.

Throw in "Free Thinking Film screenings" (on the program: Atlas Shrugged!) and free-flowing hospitality in the sponsor suites. Toss in a keynote address by libertarian presidential candidate Ron Paul (spotted enjoying the show in the House of Commons yesterday), and a panel with "Harper's Aussie Advisor," former prime minister John Howard. Sprinkle in pollsters, pundits, pro-lifers, and petroleum execs. It's a big tent, as they say.

What new vocabulary and tactics are coming to Canada? Which advocacy groups or opposition politicos do conservatives most fear? Where does the party still feel it can break through? Will Ezra dance?

Steve Paikin rasies some interesting ideas, and it's always possible that Harper could pack it in before the next election given that he has failed to grow support for the CPC in the polls since 2011. But I tend to think he wants to have one more election and try to take on Justin Trudeau and Thomas Mulcair.

Btw, Steve Paikin's son, Zach Paikin is a rising young LPC star. Weekly political panelist on CTV Newsnet and columnist for Ipolitics.ca

Debater, Zach Paikin is a rabidly overly partisan Liberal activist who is a lot like those on their way to the top in your party. Suck up to the establishment, and trump the party line. I have read his Huff Post blogs, and aside from the usual LPC propaganda, they contain nothing else of content. Try again.

AC, I made a passing reference to the fact that Zach Paikin is a young man on the rise. A partisan personal attack on Zach from you is not required. As Catchfire suggested to you yesterday, perhaps you should take a break from chatting about politics if it's going to cause you a heart attack every 2 minutes.

Btw, Zach was at the CJPAC gathering last night - he does a lot of work in Canada's Jewish community. Perhaps you will run into him sometime! He's a very smart young man, so be aware that he can take you in a debate. He's Steve Paikin's son - he's no dummy!

Btw, I have to laugh at the phrase "rabidly overly partisan Liberal activist"! Because of course there are no rabid partisan NDP activists here!

"The bigger national picture, the wave of Trudeaumania that is sweeping the Liberal party’s leadership campaign features more sea foam than coast-to-coast momentum."

...

With Trudeau in the campaign, the third-place Liberals have enjoyed a disproportional amount of mostly positive media attention for months on end. It looks like it will take a lot more than that to put them back on the map of regions such as Quebec and the Prairies in which the party has become chronically weak.

If the past is any indication, popularity and the successful signing up of scores of non-paying supporters will not do the job — or at least not for long enough.

The precipitous 1993 election decline of the Progressive Conservatives under Kim Campbell demonstrated that fundamentals eventually reassert themselves, even in the face of an initially popular new leader."

Trudeau the First was despised in BC and its hard to see how the name will sway many voters in this province. However I don't discount the Canadian Idol effect, after all many people love Michael Buble and Celine Dion.

This is a warning to those who over-demonize Harper personally rather than acknowledge that this is the party and its culture.

A switch at the top and nothing much would change. Those thinking otherwise are delusional. But if the rhetoric is just about Harper the switcheroo could work. Scary that.

Agreed.

The attack on the working class, what's left of the social safety net, the environment, human/civil rights from the right-wing will continue no matter who is at the top. It's just that some leaders may be better at carrying out this attack than others.

This is a warning to those who over-demonize Harper personally rather than acknowledge that this is the party and its culture.

A switch at the top and nothing much would change. Those thinking otherwise are delusional. But if the rhetoric is just about Harper the switcheroo could work. Scary that.

Agreed.

The attack on the working class, what's left of the social safety net, the environment, human/civil rights from the right-wing will continue no matter who is at the top. It's just that some leaders may be better at carrying out this attack than others.

Ditto and which is why I don't buy into we have to come together to get rid of Harper. Drilling down what policies and positions do individuals don't like and would be different under a Liberal, Green, or NDP govt? That to me is the essence of what the conversation should be about?

In the last election one Conservative and Liberal argument was about the F15 fighter jets. They both agreed on wanting to buy them, but one was willing to buy without engines and other with engines.

Of course, the NDP didn't want to fight any stinking fighter jets with our without engines!

I'm wondering if there'll be an "official SoCon" in the race, i.e. someone representing the Woodworth Caucus--sort of like Tom Wappel relative to the federal Liberals...

Jason Kenney? I think he's the current front runner to replace Harper.

The kind of "official SoCon" candidate I have in mind is the sort that might throw its support to Kenney after the first or second ballot, rather than Kenney himself, who I suspect would play more of a Harper-esque "grand coalition" card...